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President
Monson spoke
to young adults
Sunday in a
CES
fireside
See page 22
Students can donate money
to a worthy cause. Check out
Fundraising Week info.
See page 6.
David Wescott,
a primitive
technology and
survival skills
specialist,
stands outside
his Rexburg
home. Wescott
worked as a
script and prop
consultant on
the blockbuster
movie Cast
Away starring
Tom Hanks to
help make the
movie more
realistic. He
was also
instrumental in
starting the
Ricks College
recreation
education
program in
1979.
Rexburg man instrumental in making of 'Cast Away'
BY BRIAN PASSEY
PHOTO EDITOR
Thanks to one former Ricks
College instructor, the survival
skills Tom Hanks uses in the
blockbuster movie Cast Away
are true-to-life.
David Wescott, a primitive
technology and survival skills
specialist from Rexburg who
also taught recreational education
classes at Ricks in the
1980s, helped Cast Away screenwriter
William Broyles Jr. learn
survival skills to make the
movie more realistic.
The skills Westcott taught at
Ricks landed him the job as a
script and prop consultant for
Cast Away.
In 1995, Wescott and two
associates traveled to Mexico
where they put Broyles on a
beach for six days and let him
work out ways to survive. It
took Broyles half of a day just to
make fire, Wescott said. He also
had to make a shelter out of
palm fronds and found out later
that the fronds were filled with
scorpions.
"Most writers wouldn't go
through that" Wescott said.
"Most would just make it up."
While they were on the beach
they found a volleyball that had
washed ashore. Steve Watts,
one of Wescott's associates,
joked around with the ball,
painting a face on it and calling
it "Wilson." Broyles was apparently
inspired, and Wilson
made it into the movie as Tom
Hanks' only "companion."
They began to film the movie
in 1996 on an island in Fiji.
Though Wescott was involved
with ideas for the screenplay, he
was not directly involved with
Hanks or filming.
"It was probably better the
way they did it. If [Hanks] had
spent time with us he would
have been too good at it"
Wescott said. "It was neat to see
our ideas brought to life by
him."
The production team took
some time off to work on a different
movie while they let
Hanks' beard grow for the
film's later scenes.
In 1998 Wescott's team traveled
to Los Angeles to work on
props with director Robert
Zemeckis. They traveled back
to the island in 1998 and 1999 to
finish the filming with the
bearded Hanks.
Wescott was involved
throughout production of the
film as a script and prop consultant.
The studio later sent a
formal apology to Westcott for
INSIDE ...
Read about how Cast
Away script consultant
David Wescott was
involved in starting the
recreation education
program at Ricks
College in 1979.
PAGE 7
• Worked as a script and
prop consultant for Cast Away
from 1995 to 2000
• Guided Mario Lopez of
Saved by the Bell on NBC's
Name Your Adventure (now
being shown on the
Discovery Channel)
• Worked on MTV's first
season of Road Rules
• Owns Backtracks, a company
that publishes the
Bulletin of Primitive
Technology and runs the
Wescott's
Claim
(to ame
Thomson Farm and Folk
School in Teton, Idaho, where
traditional folk skills are
taught
• Former owner of Boulder
leaving his name out of the
credits. He was given storyboards
of the film to help with
prop building, and later
received photos of the actual
scenes to see how they turned
out. He also appeared in an
HBO special on the making of
Cast Away.
"It was neat to see the whole
operation from beginning to
end" Wescott said.
Besides Cast Away, Wescott
has been involved in other productions.
He has worked on
two television shows — NBC's
Name Your Adventure with
Mario Lopez, and the first season
of MTV's Road Rules.
Wescott appeared on camera in
both shows as he took Lopez
out on the trails of Southern
Utah for a few days and took
the Road Rules group into the
same wilderness for five days.
Outdoor Survival School
(BOSS) in Boulder, Utah,
where he is currently working
as an education director. The
school's guides took the stars
of Charlie's Angels on a backcountry
survival trip in 2000
• Helped start the
Recreation Education program
at Ricks College In
1979. He was an instructor
until 1985 and also served as
department head for two
years
A review
Hanks' acting
superb in 'Castaway'
Cast Away has everything a movie-goer could want in
an on-the-edge-of-your-seat kind of movie — it is loud,
it makes you jumpy, but about half way through, you
start asking yourself why you're still sitting there having
to endure each painful experience with Tom Hanks.
It should be said that Tom Hanks' acting throughout
the movie deserves four-and-a-half stars. He makes
every viewer look in
awe at the ice they
put in their drinks
every day. No one
really thinks about the
fact that they can just
strike a match to light
a candle or even
sometimes flip a
switch to get fire.
Hanks' superb acting
could make even the
poorest of college
students sigh in relief
at the abundance of
material possessions they really do have.
The movie makes good use of comic relief. Watching
Hanks for over an hour go through trial after trial can
be very taxing. Not even so much as music in the background
serves as a distraction.To sum it up, the comic
relief is much appreciated by the viewer when it finally
arrives.
The movie is not a see-it-over-and-over kind of
movie, but it will make anyone leave the theater with a
better appreciation for even the most basic niceties of
life.
by Jennifer Jones
Managing Editor
Hanks